This invention relates to electronically enhanced board games, and more particularly, to sport games practiced by professional players such as baseball, cricket, basketball, or golf where statistical data on the careers of past and contemporary sport figures can be used to influence the outcome of each move initiated by a game user.
The prior art offers several examples of electronic board games which attempt to simulate the documented performance of certain athletes in the context of a virtual game as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,026,058 Bromley and U.S. Pat. No. 5,067,079 Smith, III et al. In those two examples, the input and processing of the statistical data are achieved by means of programmable microprocessor. A multiplicity of game control options are offered to the user requiring a very complex and eventually costly apparatus. In the above-listed examples as well as in some simpler types of board games, the statistical data are combined with the output of a random number or random event device as well as with the parameters and action choices selected by the user. The result of this complex manipulation is not a very accurate simulation of what a particular athlete""s performance would have been in a similar situation. Some of the random numbers or random event generator devices such as dice or spin wheels are not immune human influence or control.
This invention results from an attempt to provide a simple and inexpensive apparatus for accurately simulating the performance of well-documented athletes in the course of a virtual competition, and to stage virtual contests between sports figures and teams of the same or different eras.
The principal and secondary objects of this invention are to provide a simple, yet practical and entertaining table-top game device for staging virtual contests between combinations of known players and teams from various areas and eras in a particular sport, according to a process based on the statistical performances of former or contemporary athletes, that are not affected by any user control or intervention. The invention is particularly adapted to the statistically correct simulation of game based on individual players"" skilled moves such as those required in the games of baseball, cricket, basketball or golf.
These and other valuable objects are achieved by the use of individual player cards bearing career statistics in the form of zones representing all the possible outcomes of a move. The zones are sized in proportion to the percentage of occurrence of each outcome during the player""s career. A display of discrete locations individually selectable by a random number generator are juxtaposed or laid under the card zones, the randomly selected number combines with the size-proportional zone to provide an accurate rendition of the outcome of each selected move as if had been performed by the chosen athlete.